Stroke of Indigo.

All her life was color.

The lilacs of a love song, the deep maroon of a beautiful, velvet-wrapped voice, the neon yellow of a child's cry. All so vivid, all so real, her world was an illusion drenched in rainbow dew drops - all that was ordinary, for her was magical.

Walking through the street towards her job filled Annelise with excitement every day. Was there a new color waiting for her somewhere? Would there be a new shape in the smell coming from the new bakery that just opened near the record shop? Or from the new leather couches being delivered to the library? Perhaps birds would be louder that day, with their mint green colored songs?

Everything was new every single time. She couldn't help but skip her step like a kid seeing all those shades mix and turn into a muddy brown, all of them floating around her, only for her to see,

"Hey, Dan." 

Annelise entered the record shop she worked at part time with a chirpy greeting and a smile. Dan, her boss, could see in the glint in her forest-green eyes that her small walk had been eventful, and offered her a smile back and a pat on the shoulder.

"Dots, let's bring you back to earth, okay? - what color is this?" 

Annelise sighed both at the nickname and her boss' very own method to keep her focused during the day - pointing at random records and having her say the actual color of the cover. As much as she felt fondness towards the man that gave her a chance, she didn't like when people played the adult and didn't let her be. 

His voice was as grating as a bright red.

"It's yellow." She answered flatly.

"Come on, Annie, you know why I do it"

"Yeah, yeah, my delusions are bad for business and annoying to you"

The woman sighed, leaving to arrange all the albums alphabetically as she usually did when the shop was dead.

Always with her, her art kit stayed at the staff room waiting for one single spark, something that forced her to put it to use. 

Once in a while, Dan would use Annelise's gift and her art knowledge to host events - people would play their favorite songs, or their own music to her and she would create artwork out of it. 

Sometimes people would say their favorite colors and Annelise would recommend music to them, as a mystery record.

For a boss that always tried to keep her in check, Annelise thought Dan surely liked her delusions when it brought back profit.

That was the kind of freak Annelise ended up being - always surrounded by people that watched her like a circus animal but when push came to shove, would find her "interesting".

Just another word for "useful".

At school, her synethesia wasn't seen as a gimmick. Annelise ventured into art as a way to let her gift talk, for people to see her world alongside her and without her having to say a word. She loved it; adored it. It made her life more simple and her brain less stuffy, having her thoughts come out with the stroke of her brush.

The shift at the shop that day was short, she quickly bid her farewells do her bright-red boss and skipped her step to the Studio she had been sharing with some classmates to finish their final projects.

As Annelise cruised through the nearly empty campus on a Satuday afternoon, she heard something in the distance that made her stop in her tracks. 

The color she had been missing all her life was in floating all around her, engulfing her in the warmest hug. 

Coming from the rehearsal rooms in the Music department, was her beloved and stubborn indigo. 

When Annelise Moore was a teenager, she started a synesthesia journal - painting and writing down combinations of colors and shapes and where they came from, who they came from and how it made her feel. She knew far too much about colors, checking in a color wheel which of them she had seen and which she wished to see.

Her favorite sounds were always blue. Cerulean, ultramarine, royal, periwinkle - but one always escaped from her, and that was indigo.

The perfect mixture of a deep blue with hints of the elegance of violet, impossible to find in nature and, in a spiritual sense, related to transmutation of bad energy into good. The color of the artificialy created roses that symbolize living through adversity.

The color Annelise loved the most was floating in front of her eyes, a honey voice filled with passion and dispair in a disonant happy guitar melody circled around her head and trapped her in what seemed like heaven.

She wanted to know, but was frozen. The unknown was too powerful and achieving dreams can sometimes be intimidating - that was the case for Annelise.

Instead of running towards the wonder of the sound of her dreams, she ran towards the studio.

Inside, two classmates - Dahlia and Matt - were focused on the pieces and only gave her a short and sweet hello. 

And there it was, her piece. A mix media on canvas with all sorts of blues, creating a realistic mosaic of a brain.

Some pieces were blank. Annelise had been waiting for the moment she could hear that indigo sound.

"I'm redoing it."

Annelise thought she had whispered, but could hear gasps behind her. Dahlia and Matt were staring, eyes like saucepans, and slowly getting closer to her.

There was a chance of an angry artist, and that was never fun. 

"What the fuck, Annie," Matt said in a gasp. "We don't have much left, why would you?"

"I heard it." She replied, in a trance. "Indigo, i heard it - I'm gonna make as sculpture"

"You don't do sculptures!" Dahlia chuckled in disbelief.

"I don't think you get it, guys," Turning around with a determined fire in her eyes, Annelise looked at them. "I've been looking for that sound since I was a child. It's someone in this university - maybe, maybe! this could call him"

Matt and Dahlia looked at eachother - they both knew trying to stop Annie was an absolute waste of effort and time. So was trying to reason with her when she was set on something. They were friends, and both admired how dedicated and stubborn their synesthete friend could be.

There was a reason she was a top student. They simply had to let her genius be. 

"The shape I saw. Then the colors..." 

Quickly, the synesthete brought out her notebook and a pencil and started sketching. 

She stopped midway to look at the door - she needed to put a face on her stroke of indigo.